


The Crash They Heard

by Accidentallytechohazardous



Series: Apartmentsquad [4]
Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Car Accidents, M/M, Minor Injuries, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-24
Updated: 2014-02-24
Packaged: 2018-01-13 14:24:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1229779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Accidentallytechohazardous/pseuds/Accidentallytechohazardous
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I love you without self-control, though I am aware of the possible consequences. I love you irreversibly, and lacking the restraint I wish I had. I love you in the way that loving you changes something about the world.</p><p>I love you like a collision loves a moving car.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Crash They Heard

It’s a quarter to one in the morning when Renji regains consciousness to an intense ache across his chest in an uncomfortable, unsymmetric squeeze. His face stings all over like needles piercing the skin of a voodoo doll, and there is a timely throb that runs up and down from the middle of his spine all the way up to his neck almost at an almost rhythmic pace.

 

He hears the sirens before he opens his eyes. He opens his mouth to call out, make some kind of sound, or maybe just to tell them to shut up because he’s got a killer migraine right now so cutting the noise would just be common courtesy at this point. All that comes out from between his lips is a wet, heavy panting sound like a beaten dog. He tells his stupid mouth to make words but his tongue is too heavy to move, everything is too heavy, and this one-sided conversation has taken the last bit of energy he had anyways so there’s no point in even trying anymore just hush up now already.

 

His vision comes back just enough to give him a hazy view of the dashboard, the broken fragments of glass gleaming white from the light of the lamppost and red with freckles of blood. Ah, Renji’s brain helpfully informs him, that must be why his face is so hurty. He’s probably in a tremendous amount of pain right now, but his body is in shock and frankly Renji would be just fine and dandy with it staying that way for a while.

 

Having collected a sufficient amount of data regarding his current condition, Renji decides he’s done with this scene and he would very much like to go back to sleep now. Renji’s brain agrees, figuring that what happens next is the boring parts anyways. He closes his eyes and his mind goes to static at the same time someone pries open his car door, snaps off his seatbelt and starts lugging his body out of his seat. Renji’s last thought is the pondering if he could get fired for this, since he has a stack of pizzas in the back that need to be delivered by half an hour ago or else a portion of it comes out of his paycheck. Does his insurance cover company cars?

 

—

 

Izuru gets to the hospital first, as he was on his way home and got the call from his cell just as he was polishing the molars he’d collected for the day.

 

How does that happen? How does one phone-call, one bored-sounding voice delivering just the wrong collection of words completely crush the air out of his lungs and leave a spaceless, hollow void inside. Izuru’s throat gets dry. He commands his hands to stop shaking but they stubbornly refuse to obey. It feels like his entire body is humming, his molecules are vibrating and every fiber of his being is electric.

 

He’s breathless when he tells his usual cab home they’re taking a detour tonight.

“Kurosaki medical clinic, please.” His voice cracks, so he repeats himself in a sterner voice. “Kurosaki medical clinic. Right now”

 

—

 

“Give it to me straight, doc, will I ever be able to play the piano again?”

 

“Renji, shut up.”

 

“Thats great, cuz’ I couldn’t play it before!”

 

“Are you trying to lighten the mood by being stupid or do I seriously need to get a nurse.” Izuru covers his smile with his hand, because if he lets Renji see he’s smiling he’ll know that Izuru is feeling. And if Izuru is feeling even a little bit, all the other emotions will tumble out, too. He has too much dignity to start crying over his boyfriend’s wounded body in a hospital room when he knows perfectly well everything is going to be okay. He needs to at least have vanquished his evil twin and discovered two illicit paramours in his family tree before he reaches that level of soap opera shit.

 

Renji grins, and it doesn’t look entirely comfortable to do so. “I could follow the light with my eyes, so they say I’m not concussed. I'm a bit surprised myself, I feel super-out of it. To be fair I’m on an awful lot of pain meds right now.”

 

Izuru could have guessed, from the fact that Renji’s pupils are so wide they seem to swallow up his irises. His face is swollen, with angry red scrapes across his forehead, cheeks, and chin for good measure. A swatch of gauze is taped above his eyebrow, soaking up blood from a particularly stubborn cut that wouldn’t close right. It will probably need stitches. His mouth hangs open with the effort of keeping his labored breath, hitching when he breathes too deeply and irritates the thick, purple bruises in the imprint of the steering wheel and seat belt slashed across his chest. The ugly plum color looks horrible, framed between the black lines of his tattoos where the hospital gown just barely shows it.

 

“Shuuhei is on his way. No doubt he’ll be in such a panic he’ll get lost at least six times on the way over here.” Izuru says. He spoke to Shuuhei on the phone while waiting for Renji to come out of Intensive Care. That was a weird experience. “Intensive care” was usually only a phrase applied to Renji when Izuru is forcing him to let Izuru comb the tangles out of his hair. The image of Renji lying unconscious in a room full of strangers pulling bits of windshield out of his face feels unnatural, like a bad photoshop job. Izuru has a difficult time even moving beyond trying to picture Renji being shuttled over here in an ambulance, passed around in a stretcher from one set of hands to another. It makes his mouth dry and his mind spin.

 

In fact, this entire waiting in the hospital scene is very un-Renji like overall. Izuru has a difficult time even processing either of them were even here right now.

 

“I guess that means I get you all to myself now. Where’s your naughty nurse outfit?” Renji cracks. There are gray shadows under his eyes. He looks tired. Understandably.

 

Izuru sucks oxygen back into his chest, forcing himself to stand up straight. If Rangiku were here, this would be the part where she tells him to say something compassionate, maybe even a little wise. “You don’t deserve the naughty nurse outfit. Idiots who get in car crashes don’t deserve naughty nurses.”

 

“What if the patient promises to be on their best behavior from now on?” Renji prompts, and flourishes it with a suggestive eyebrow wiggle. A bead of blood leaks out from behind the gauze and trickles down his jawline.

 

“You’re bleeding.” Izuru sighs.

 

“Shut up. I know I am.”

 

Izuru wants to say something- anything that will somehow make this better. He doesn’t know how. This was never on any study guide he was handed, poetry liturgies don’t typically ever talk about how it feels to be making small-talk with someone you love in a hospital room. Literature like that tends to highlight the drama, or otherwise skip to when the subject was already-

 

At any rate, he’s lost right now. This isn’t supposed to happen. Renji’s gotten hurt many, many times before, but none so much that he couldn’t bounce back from it in an hour or two. No injury has ever been like this, putting pictures in Izuru’s mind of Renji’s body crushed inwards on itself from collision or with his neck twisted at an angle like a body hanging on a noose as Izuru urges the cab to go faster with the word “accident” still fresh in his mind.

 

Renji gives him this pouty puppy dog look, like he thinks he’s in trouble for something. “Stop giving me that look. I’m okay.”

 

He’s definitely not, but Izuru knows he will be. Maybe it will take a while, but the doctors already said Renji is expected to make a full recovery. He’s still going to be there to rest his chin on top of Izuru’s head in that annoying way he does when he wants to rub his freakish tallness in Izuru’s face. Mornings will still come where Renji’s limbs are wrapped around Izuru’s body and its too warm and cozy to get out of bed even though the light from the window is shining right in Izuru’s eyes, but the flat plane just below the protrusion of Renji’s collarbone through his skin seems to have been designed with the specific intention of letting Izuru use it as a pillow so whats even the point in getting up?

 

Renji’s eyes flick up and down Izuru, because Renji doesn’t know how to play the helpless victim. It’s not something he can even fathom. His pride wouldn't allow him to admit such a thing is even possible. “Do you wanna sit down? You look kinda sleepy.”

 

Izuru is, actually, a little sleepy. It’s been an emotionally draining night. But things like his own physical health seem just a bit less important right now and he’s always kind of sleepy anyways. But its pointless for Izuru to argue with Renji, certainly not now when he would kicking a man while he’s literally down by refusing to even the playing field. No doubt in the near future there will be a number of things Renji will attempt to do by himself that Izuru will have to prevent him from doing. Renji’s gonna be so pissed when he has to take the elevator because he can’t make it up one flight of stairs to their apartment without getting winded. Maybe Izuru can convince Renji to let Shuuhei carry him. That would be an interesting conversation.

 

Izuru turns towards the plastic chairs lined up against the wall, but Renji calls out to him before he can make a move. “Not over there, idiot. Over here. To be honest, its been a long night and I’m in the mood for some hardcore coddling.”

 

“That doesn’t sound like a good idea. If I move the bed will that, like, break you?” Izuru asks before he can remember who he’s talking to. Renji goes red around his face, even more so than it already was from, you know, the flesh wounds and what-have-yous. “Nevermind. I’m coming.”

 

He scoots on to the hospital bed and the mattress dips slightly under his weight. A quiet hiss comes out from between Renji’s teeth at the sudden jostling, but Izuru pretends not to notice. It’s the same thing he’d want, after all, if it were him in Renji’s place.

 

Izuru curls himself with his side against the headrest and his arm draped over Renji’s hips safely away from his chest so he’s sort of half-spooning Renji’s side. They’ve been in more graceful positions before, and thats not even counting the innuendo that statement implies. But its surprisingly comfortable.

 

Renji smells like disinfectant and chemicals and basically like a hospital. They had to undo his ponytail in order to brush all the shards of windshield out, and when Izuru thinks of that it gives him the mental image of tiny bits of glass falling and bouncing against the floor like hailstones. Izuru buries his nose in the loose strands of hair until he can find the spicy smell of Renji’s shampoo among the sterile, medical scents.

 

“Soon, very soon, someone’s gonna come in this room.” Renji says. “And they’re gonna try to talk to us about insurance and hospital bills and drugs they want me to pay out the ass for and it’s gonna be scary.”

 

“Hmm. If that should be the case, we’ll tell them to wait until Shuuhei comes and let him deal with it.” Izuru decides, Renji finds the hand Izuru curled around him and interlocks his fingers with Izuru’s.

 

“The nurses said if I was a good boy I’d get ice cream. I’m not talking to anybody until I get my ice-cream.” Renji says firmly, with all the resolution of a man who’s on morphine but definitely means it.


End file.
